"To compensate a little for the treachery and weakness of my memory, so extreme that it has happened to me more than once to pick up again, as recent and unknown to me, books which I had read carefully a few years before . . . I have adopted the habit for some time now of adding at the end of each book . . . the time I finished reading it and the judgment I have derived of it as a whole, so that this may represent to me at least the sense and general idea I had conceived of the author in reading it." (Montaigne, Book II, Essay 10 (publ. 1580))

Monday, June 13, 2022

How China Escaped the Poverty Trap (Yuen Yuen Ang, 2022)

(Kindle)

Book club selection (via Rose; session held (via Zoom) June 12, 2022).

The problem of development.  I much like thinking about it but the challenges, the local difficulties.

calling China "capitalist"; yet all the interviews seem to be with government officials; the entire story is about government control; five levels etc; what relevance the long imperial history - bureaucrats, exams, top-down has been accepted forever - ?

Deng - a leader.  His "Southern Tour" revives lagging momentum.

Willingness to "let some get rich first" was a key.

And China has accomplished a lot.

more broadly:  societies that don't tolerate inequality also don't improve economically.  yet the "inequality" complaint makes people miserable.

TVEs (township and village enterprises) - (from corporate law perspective) who really owned/controlled?  neither state-owned or owned by private individuals - ? surrogate entrepreneurialism - ?  I didn't understand.

what relevance England, US, Holland?  emergence there centuries ago was not complicated by an overweening global economy

author's theme:  coevolution: harness weak instits to build markets; then emerging markets stimulate better instits; strong instits preserve markets.  at the beginning, settle for "good enough" governance (aid agencies shouldn't strictly insist on "democracy", however defined).

corruption

aid agencies killing local initiative, opportunity.  Is it permissible to compare to domestic welfare programs?

functioning administrative states left behind by colonizers (Singapore, India) - to what effect?

Nollywood an odd case

I liked the interview approach, the review of local records - an interesting dive into the situation in various Chinese locales.  Just not sure how far it takes us.

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